The Earth Centred Business Design (ECBD) Tool is a framework for supporting entrepreneurs and founders to incorporate environmental and social sustainability considerations into their business plans from the outset.
Developed through the European Institute of Technology funded CloudEARTHi initiative, the Earth Centred Business Design Tool enables the development of low-carbon, circular start-ups which are an integral part of the net zero transition.
Combining digital resources, with the option of tailored mentoring and support, the Tool helps entrepreneurs and founders to understand commercial risks and opportunities associated with climate change and wider sustainability challenges and to respond to these by:
The Earth Centred Business Design Tool has benefited several startups who participated in its development and testing and its impact has been recognised with the ‘Making an Environmental Difference’ prize at the 2023 Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards.
The ECBD Tool is one of a suite of resources and support available to staff and students at the University of Edinburgh who are looking to bring a business idea to life and to progress their entrepreneurial ambitions.
The award-winning Earth Centred Business Design Framework (ECBD) is a resource for Higher Education Institutions to support founders and entrepreneurs to build net zero carbon, circular economy thinking into their business propositions at the earliest stage.
The ECBD is available for non-profit academic institutions only – please enquire directly for a commercial license.
Making an impact
We already have some great examples of how the ECBD tool has been used by startups.
Using the tool the founders have a one-to-one meeting to discuss their operational plan, product development, financial support, revenue strategies and their role in the ecosystem. Founders then work through the exercises, complete the ECBD canvas, and develop a final action plan. This enables them to incorporate resilience tactics, align business development to net zero and change business strategies to be more circular.
Danu Robotics is an Edinburgh-based cleantech start-up working to develop a revolutionary robotic system for the recycling industry to significantly increase recycling efficiency. They incorporated the ECBD learning in their revenue strategy and their supply chain management. They have used ECBD to integrate resilience in their business planning.
Ethy is a sustainability accreditation provider and digital platform. They set future milestones and plans to future-proof the business and reach net zero by creating 12 targets from four different key areas - environment, social, finance and political. They will track their progress every quarter using the work produced from the CloudEARTHi project.
Crover Ltd have the world's first granular drone, a robotic device capable of navigating in granular bulks to provide real time grain status and quality information to ensure quality control and grain preservation. They are using the ECBD to review their material, product flows and design.
Heritage Hive Ltd aims to tailor museums' retail offerings to local and sustainable products that also help create resilient creative communities, local employment and nature regeneration. Currently, much of what is available for sale in museum gift shops is imported, uses unsustainable materials and creates waste during and after the product life cycle, as well as emissions during manufacture and transport. The ECBD has been valuable to them to develop their supply chain resilience and to scale up their proposition.
Outfit of Tomorrow Ltd: brings sustainable fashion to the masses online. It is a website and browser extension that enables fashion consumers to make sustainable choices quickly, easily and with the right information. Their website lists products with relevant links to sustainable brands. Their browser extension recommends users internal or external sustainable alternatives to the items they search for with a similar price range. They have been able to refine their business plan and advance their environmental offerings using the ECBD.
Watch a short video on the CloudEARTHi project.
Watch a short video on the Earth Centred Business Design.
